viff 2010 | auteurs

Quite a few new works by some of the world's most interesting directors at the 2010 Vancouver International Film Festival. In another post I've mentioned several that premiered at Cannes, including films by Abbas Kiarostami, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Apictatpong Weerasethakul and Alejandro González Iñárritu. Here are some non-Cannes pictures by noteworthy helmsmen...

Another Year

(UK, Mike Leigh, 129 min)

"Mike Leigh's latest contemporary, North London-set drama about an interconnected set of family and friends is almost about nothing at all, and yet it gently juxtaposes the big issues of everyday life: loneliness and love, selfishness and kindness, birth and death. Arguably Leigh's tautest, most likable effort since Secrets and Lies..." Variety

"Widely admired. Charts four seasons in the lives of a married couple and their fraught interactions with an emotionally unstable spinster colleague. . . There are scenes here, staged in long master takes, that consist exclusively of people talking in simple rooms yet are as cinematic as anything I've seen on screen this year." Scott Foundas, Film Comment

Sun, Oct 10th 10:30am | G7

Mon, Oct 11th 6:45pm | G7

Wed, Oct 13th 3:45pm | G7

The Princess of Montpensier

Bertrand Tavernier: Coup de Torchon, Round Midnight, It All Starts Today, The Judge and the Assassin

A young noblewoman is torn between passion, duty, companionship and ambition, each quality personified by a different man, in this compelling period drama. Like its heroine [newcomer Mélanie Thierry], Tavernier's visitation to 16th-century France has both beauty and brains. Variety

"A complex saga of unrequited love and illicit double-crosses, set against the French religious wars of the late 16th century." Film Comment

Sat, Oct 2nd 6:30pm | Park

Tue, Oct 5th 12:30pm | G7

Around a Small Mountain

(France, Italy, Jacques Rivette, 84 min)

An ineffable charmer from a French master about a small, itinerant circus. Jane Birkin and Sergio Castellitto star. A... late minor gem from [Jacques Rivette]... as transporting and graceful as a ride in a balloon. It flows effortlessly from scene to scene, the story floating on Mr. Rivette’s gentle camera movement. - The New York Times

Thu, Sep 30th 9:15pm | G7

Thu, Oct 7th 11:00am | Vancity

Sun, Oct 10th 1:00pm | Park Theatre

Get Out Of The Car

(Thom Anderson, 34 min)

Thom Andersen (Los Angeles Plays Itself) fashions a city symphony (pointedly and politically shot in 16mm) comprised of advertising signs, building facades, wall-to-wall fragments of popular music and conversation and unmarked sites of vanished cultural landmarks.

Sat, Oct 2nd 7:00pm | Vancity Theatre

Sun, Oct 3rd 4:30pm | Vancity Theatre